Geoff .... your post nails one of our chief concerns with cats, its hard for a lifetime mono sailor to acquire any real affection for them.

Paulo ... were we to ever consider going multi the accomodation would be one of the major selling points. I know you spend more time on your boat than we do but even so we usually get in a couple of short cruises , total around six weeks, plus we spend around three out of every four weekends on board even through winter and in summer tending towards three day weekends as well. Sydney is a moderate climate, we have a nice long hottish summer that in reality covers the end of spring and the beginning of autumn so easily five months of good weather with a relatively mild winter. Nonetheless we still spend the vast majority of our time at anchor. A forty foot cat murders our 42' mono as far as living area is concerned.

Regarding performance I'd have thought that once you get into the 40' range a comparable loa cat would outperform a mono in pretty much all conditions though e.g a Lagoon may not fall into that category. Certainly the cat we paced ourselves against last month was our equal hard on the wind and simply walked away when reaching.

I know it may as if I am trying to sell something but really for the first time I took a real interest in the cats around us this year and yes they did make a positive impression on me. Not they will are likely to change our ride. Looking at things like e.g Leopards indicates that such a move would easily double what we paid for the Malo. Bit rich for me I think.

Now that I've let the thread percolate a little and the mono folks say their piece I'll chime in.
So far, I'm the only poster to have actually owned a cat, just saying.

Cat's have nine lives, and not all cats are the same. Some are built as cruisers, some racers, some do the same oxymoronic thing mono's do and try to be a racer/cruiser or cruiser/racer.
All boats are compromises.
I paid a list price of 154k for my Gemini, new off factory floor in 2007. At the time a Bene/Catalina/Hunter in the 38 foot range was 180 ish.
Gem's are built to a price point, they have gotten better since Hunter took over, but are now in the 200-225k price range.

As to pointing ability - sure the stub keel types (Lagoons, Leopards etc.) don't point well. They aren't made to folks, no more than shoal keel mono's are.
Boards down, my Gemini pointed to 35 degrees apparent wind, fall off 5 degrees and speed went up 1/3.
I broke 14kts in 20kts of wind on a close reach - with a queen sized bed, air conditioner, three cabins and a dinghy hanging on the davits. That wasn't surfing, that was for a mile of thrill ride until common sense prevailed and I shortened sail.
Let's just close the performance issue until someone can say a comparatively sized and outfitted mono can do that, even once.

Comparing a Lagoon's pointing ability to a Malo is just wrong. Compare it (as a cruising boat) to a Island Packet.
I've sailed side by side with a IP 34, no boards for me - and it was a point to point match. I put the boards down, I outpointed it and sailed away.
I've also sailed side by side with CraigToo on his Sabre 34 (centerboard). I can't point with him, but I can catch him on a reach (not with his new assym).
When he is in cruising mode (full of people, stuff and towing a dinghy) he's right down there in the low knots with me.

Apples to apples

Apples and oranges folks.

Okay, now - as some of you know I no longer have that Gemini, I've gone back to the Dark side on a Irwin 38 CC.
Don't try to read between the lines. As the cruising time in my life approaches it makes sense to have a paid off boat rather than making payments for another decade.

The one thing none of you has mentioned so far - heeling. Cat's do heel ya know, especially the smaller ones.

Capsize, let me bring it up - sure, catamarans can and do, and when they do they don't come back up.
But they float and provide a survival platform.
Mono's roll, but come back up, sometimes they do, sometimes they just sink - with rig broken and flailing around. It's not like you are going to do anything but fire off a EPRIB and wait for rescue (same as the folks on the catamaran).

Regarding performance I'd have thought that once you get into the 40' range a comparable loa cat would outperform a mono in pretty much all conditions though e.g a Lagoon may not fall into that category. Certainly the cat we paced ourselves against last month was our equal hard on the wind and simply walked away when reaching.

I know it may as if I am trying to sell something but really for the first time I took a real interest in the cats around us this year and yes they did make a positive impression on me. Not they will are likely to change our ride. Looking at things like e.g Leopards indicates that such a move would easily double what we paid for the Malo. Bit rich for me I think.

Nonetheless the discussion interests me.

As I said, there are cats that are built for the space and cats that are build for performance and one of those built for space will have not a better performance than a performance mono-hull cruiser.

On the articles section of sailnet, that is unavailable (don't know why) there is a very interesting compassion between cats and monohulls made by a delivery skipper, one of the best I have read.

For what you describe to be your sailing season it seems to me that a cat makes a lot of sense and I am referring of those built for space and living aboard. Even those can sail pretty well, specially if compared with a mainstream cruiser. In Sardinia, some years back I meet an Italian that had sailed a 42ft Lagoon to Brazil, Caribbean and back and he was very satisfied with the boat.

My sailing season is a bit different. I like to have the boat sailing so In average I sail 6/8 hours a day, sometimes more and I like to push the boat (for pleasure) so a small cat (40ft) would be a bad idea for me, specially in the med where strong gusts from mountains are quite frequent not to mention that they provide indifferent sailing. A small cat requires a prudent sailor and one that sails always with a big safety margin.

These guys says about the same as I am saying regarding space and performance and they are heavy weights, I mean to Na Nigel Irens, top sailor Brian Thompson and top tester from YW sail magazine:

The fact they have not much thing to say about sailing is give you a hint that these boats are not designed to give pleasure as sailing boats. They work alright on autopilot and sail you to where you want to go but they are really about space and quality life at anchor. It seems they fit perfectly your bill

In fact what you do it is what most cruisers do and that's why they are so popular. It happens that most don't have the honesty to say that is that what they like most on a sailboat, it seems that you are one of the few that have no problem in saying that you stay 90% of time on anchor. I am quite sure you are not the only one, in fact I am pretty sure you are among the majority, unless we consider the ones that like most to be at marinas.

chucklesR,
As a prior owner of a Gemini, would you buy another one? How was the quality? We plan on buying our first large cruiser, after having smaller monohulls, and spend a couple of years in the caribbean. We have been looking at Fountaine Pajot and Lagoon in the 35 to 38 foot range. I spent a week on a Fountaine 42 last October, and was impressed on the stability and performance. It did struggle on being close hauled (45 degrees). My budget is between $150,000 and $200,000, depending on whether it is ready to cruise. Originally thought that I would consider the Gemini, but thought that they seems to be a little light weight for what I was wanting to do. Since we are 6 months away from having to make any decision, I am open to opinions.

We cruised our 40' mono (Catalina 400) for a year and then lived on it for a year. We have since sold the boat and moved onto a horse farm ;-)

If I could do it again, and the cruising was similar (island hopping Bahamas or the carribean) and did not involve crossing any oceans or rounding any horns, I would definetely choose a Catamaran (assuming money is no object).

The catamaran is a much more comfortable cruising plaform once you are at anchor, even compared to a mono like our C400 (with it's large cockpit and interior volume).

One huge advantage of a catamaran is the closeness of the salon to the cockpit, it allows the galley slave to be part of social activities in the cockpit while preparing food and drinks. When the weather is inclement it is nice to be able to sit in the salon and actually see what's is going on outside.

Some of the larger cats also allow you to sail/motor from the nav station with joystick controls. Nice in bad/rainy weather.

Ease of getting in and out of dinghy is a big plus. Nice sturdy davits another. Ability to add enormous amount of solar panels to cockpit hard bimini.

Private owners states room is nice. lagoon 400 and 420 has very nice starboard hull statesrooms.

Drawbacks: galley storage and counter space can be on the small side (see Lagoon 380)
Also - the interior seems to be less woody and more plastic than most monos.

As far as performance goes, there seems to be a huge difference between a cruising cat like a Lagoon 380 and a performance cruising cat like the Aussie built Fusion 40. we sailed from the Abacos to Ft Pierce FL ( a 24 hr run) on a broad reach with wind strength varying from 10 to 20+ over 24 hrs. the Lagoon 380 started from same place as us and we were probably 500 ft behind the at FT Pierce inlet. The Fusion 40 started 1-2 hrs behind us, overtook us as we entered the gulf stream and then we never saw him again. Admittedly the Fusion guy was a very accomplished sailor and flew a cruising chute (during the night...brave...)

Andrew, take a look at the Aussie built fusion, they come in kit form and you can a professional yard finish them to your spec.

The Bumfuzzle article cited and the above posts sum it up. If money is no object then a big cruising multi wins the day. This would be music to my Dad's ears. Back in the early 80's he was an early adapter with a home built wooden tri.

But multis are just too darn expensive for us. The only way we are going cruising in our 30s and 40s is on a well built, good looking, classic mono.

I love our mono but growing up in the South Pacific multis seemed more classic to me than monos. All the old trading sailing craft were multis. All the old fishing sailing craft were lakatois (outriggers). Monos are just more classic to Europeans. Some of the greatest sailors of all times - the Melanesians and Polynesians - used multis.

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